Tour guides protest Franceschini bill: no to national directory without distinction

TheNational Association of Tourist Guides (ANGT) is organizing a garrison in front of the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture in Rome tomorrow, Thursday, March 5, 2020, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., to protest the tourism bill wanted by Minister Dario Franceschini. The protest, in particular, is against Article 4 of the bill, which establishes a national list of guides without distinction of the scope of qualification.

The ANGT therefore calls for the deletion of Article 4 of the ddl, because the risk, according to the guides, is to generate professional chaos without protecting potential tourists who seek a guide capable of meeting their needs (“Let us not forget,” the ANGT stresses, “that the profession of Tourist Guide is deeply connected to the correct knowledge of the historical-artistic and cultural heritage of the area of qualification also for the protection of the tourist-consumer, who has the right to use an adequate level of service, rendered by individuals who have previously demonstrated specific knowledge of it.”) The association, moreover, expresses its disappointment that, since 2013, the ministry still intends to proceed through decrees and state-region agreement to regulate the profession of tour guide without taking into account the constitutional and legal principles that require the state to regulate the profession through a law.

The association also stresses other points: opposes any qualifying private training courses, calls for clarity and transparency regarding the updating of the lists of Guides from European countries in temporary and occasional service that are no longer consultable since September 2019 (otherwise calls for a responsible attitude regarding compensatory measures for guides who have had their professional title recognized, now reduced to a six-month apprenticeship that is not at all controlled by any institution and left to the arbitrariness of the applicant who can choose his or her own tutor resulting in unclear and unverifiable practices), and finally calls for no deregulation of the profession of tour guide, a professional figure indispensable for the conduct of visitor trips in our countryand complementary to that of the tour guide, seeing in this unjustified measure an attempt to disestablish the figure of the tour guide conquer the ambiguous figure of a “national guide.” In addition to all this, adds the ANGT, there is also the difficult situation that the category is going through due to the problems of the coronavirus that has, in fact, zeroed, throughout Italy, all guide services until next summer.

Pictured: the Collegio Romano, headquarters of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage. Ph. Credit Finestre Sull’Arte.

Tour guides protest Franceschini bill: no to national directory without distinction

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